The following exchange prompted me to think about this subject and inspired me to make this thread:
The tree in this case I understood to symbolize a proud, virtuous person who prioritizes intellectual/moral integrity above survival and would rather die than succumb to what they consider immoral/evil/untrue.
The grass is the one who chooses the path of least resistance, whose intellectual and moral positions are dependent on how well they contribute to their survival regardless of the truth, facts, and what they actually consider moral/true.
The grass can, sometimes, if it is convenient, assume the true/moral positions like a tree does, and it is consistent with the concept of a grass if it contributes to their survival.
But can a tree prioritize survival above intellectual/moral integrity and still remain a mighty, proud and strong tree?
A practical example would be: If Nazis/Communists were to try and take your neighbors/friends/family away, would you prioritize your own survival and not do anything or would you try to help at the risk of your survival? Do you think you would be acting less morally if you let them get taken, or do you think it’s equally justified not to do anything because it threatens your survival? Also, would you react differently depending on the degree of intimacy in relationships you developed with people about to be taken away (a neighbor, a friend or family)?
My position is that the grass is despicable and morally reprehensible. It conforms to mass thinking, which usually results in mass stupidity, weakness, and independence. I would rather die fighting for my values than live a worthless life of lies and submission. The only exception is the ‘retreat to fight another day’ scenario.
I see it as a cycle, and you’re a part of it too. How many of your ancestors, do you think, have embraced the path of least resistance, and by doing so, ensured that you exist today? Perhaps people’s thinking was along the lines of saving the fight for another generation, at a more opportune time.
Can you give us some specific examples from your own life where you actually walked the talk here?
It is easy to speak of dying with integrity when it is all hypothetical, but each particular context can only be experienced by one particular individual who understands the context in a particular way.
Thus the options afforded to that indivual can only really be understood by her. And while those among the masses who facilitated someone like Hitler’s rise to power might be construed as the grass, others might construe Hitler himself to be the tree.
Also, the values that the strong embrace [and then sustain with integrity] may well result in the indoctrination of the many. The individual blades of grass are simply brainwashed from birth to be sheep. They may be bred to know no other way in which to construe their “reality”.
I’m not as narcissistic as you think I am. Perhaps if they didn’t choose the path of least resistance a better person might have been born.
And if every generation adopts the ‘save the fight for the next generation’ kind of thinking…
I haven’t been put in such a life or death situation yet. But usually, yes, pursue truth and advocate my values despite of what the majority thinks. I’m only human, it’s possible that I would cower, or break.
But I don’t agree with trying to make it seem as relative as you do - we can understand, at least to a certain extent, what others are going through.
And yes, I do think that there are some people who are just born as grass, and others who are born as trees, most of us occupying some position inbetween…
How so? Give me an example.
Are you saying that if one of your ancestors chose to fight and later had children, their genetics would be different and they would have a different/better children? And how do you define ‘fighting’? Values like virtue and morals change over time and are often created by society and its subsets to preserve its integrity and cohesion. Nature, outside of human intervention has only one cardinal value, survival. There is no “intellectual” or “moral” integrity in nature. Living creatures survive whichever and whatever way that they can. This is why we have diversity of life.
There are times to be either reed or tree, it is difficult to know when to be. Just as it is difficult to know when you should be a sheep or a lion.
Emotions are the issue for difficulty. Many a brave person screwed things up for themselves and others just as sheepish people have. I admit to being an idiot that tends to attack the thing that scares the crap out of me when running would be the smart thing. Emotions often make our decision for us.
We would have to teach our kids from birth to be Vulcans.